Earlier today I was reflecting on how our planning evolves in response to the skills we want to teach, the interests of the children and pressures from whole school, the government etc.

​Don't worry - I'm not going to go off on one about how the government shapes what we do in the classroom (that would be a MAJOR blog!) but I was thinking about our baseline. Since the children started in September we have been making observations of the children to supplement the transfer data we got from pre-schools and nurseries. We knew we wanted to get a good handle on the children's letter knowledge but hadn't quite worked out how we were going to go about it. I wanted to avoid just getting the children to come with an adult ("Put that Lego sword down before you have someone's eye out! Come and say some sounds with me. Wouldn't that be fun? What do you mean you'd rather be playing ninjas?!") and say sounds as we point to them. Where's the fun and engagement with that?! Sometimes you just can't dress up a learning opportunity to be attractive to everyone but surely we could do something...?!

​What are the children interested in I hear you cry?! Lego - maybe we could write letters on bricks and get them to build something?! Babies - maybe we could make clothes for the babies with letters on them (sort of like a Mrs Weasley from Harry Potter, only I can't sew anything)! Dressing up - maybe the children could dress up and we could stick name badges to their dressing up clothes?! Okay - so we'll call those ideas 'Plan B' and we'll think about what story we are looking at next week.

Why on earth are you reading such a random story? Well that little story starts way back in July. You see, someone came up with the fab idea of inviting all of new children into school for a morning and to bring a parent. We invited a local artist to come along and spend time helping everyone to make their own monster. Their monster would go home with them over the summer and start school with them in September! 

The workshops were really successful. We gave the families an introduction to school, got to know the children a little and had the chance to speak to the parents and ask them what kind of support we could offer them in the future. The children all began school in September and the monsters joined the classroom. We even took them when we felt brave enough to explore the rest of the school!

We knew that we were going to use the monsters to help the children explore different learning opportunities - for example to help understand emotions (they're going to be a representation of 'The Beast' that 'comes out' when we experience strong, negative emotions - an idea suggested from ClassDojo) before they went home again. We also realised that we had a book called 'The Day the Gogglynippers Escaped' which is about a boy called Diggle who helps find the Gogglynippers from McDoogle's Monster Farm after they get out. It's a funny book with some basic counting and a good dollop of poo to keep everyone entertained! Towards the end of the story Diggle attracts the last Gogglynipper by using smelly socks. Surely the children would like to catch monsters using smelly socks...?! So naturally we thought about making fishing rods with magnets and put paper clips onto monsters with letters on (from twinkl.com). Of course we attached socks to the fishing rods - it all made some kind of mad sense...!

The children were really keen to have a go - even though I knew they didn't know all of the sounds. What I hadn't anticipated was that with 2 children fishing at the same time some of them would help each other and I loved that accidental learning! And so it was that I found myself watching children fish for monster sounds with a smelly sock. All in a days work, eh?!

We are now well into the autumn term and our children are beginning to settle, make friends, stay all day and embrace the new environments and resources. Baseline assessments are going well and staff are loving observing the cohort of new children.
Something that has been very strong with my new class this year as opposed to other years is the interest in small world and construction. No matter what else is available, both girls and boys seem to always be drawn to these activities.
On reflection my classroom set up isn't quite right and although caters for this strong interest, it's not quite encompassing that passion! I know we all spend oodles of time getting our classrooms and outdoors areas ready before September not truly knowing the children that we shall be welcoming and sometimes it doesn't always 'feel' right! But it's ok to make those changes just like adapting your planning to meet the needs and interests, your environment should be treated the same too.

So it was the end of the week and also a Friday!  myself and my team decided to stay on and .....blitz the classroom to reflect our cohort, tap into those interests and make a larger space/area to allow the children room to create, construct, design etc. We didn't care that we should be sat planning - we saw this as an integral part to feeding forward and meeting the needs of our children.

I have had my eye on the new 'Lego wall tape' for some time and in moving furniture around and opening up areas, I have a great section of wall that needs something.....cue my chance to bag myself some Lego tape!!!!

Not necessarily cheap but something different that I know the children will love and I get to use an unusual space for the children's creations! I found these on Amazon. Shhh don't tell the hubby how much!!! 🤣

The pack of Lego wall strips aren't exactly....generous but caused quite a stir today! The children loved the fact that they could build onto the wall- it's a little tricky at first to bond the strip and Lego pieces with only certain ways that they will connect but it's was a great problem solving activity. The main visitors today were the GIRLS!

The children loved the space that I had opened up too. Plus for the first time children opted to stay in rather than go outside.

I will certainly be looking to add Lego baseboards to the wall space to allow for a different way of modelling- the great thing is that the strips are compatible with all types of Lego to include the cheaper versions too!

I shall be adapting this space throughout the year to reflect interests and needs but all in all, I am thrilled with the space and area!

​Anita x

Involving parents in their child's learning isn't something that always comes easily. Sometimes you can feel like you're doing everything possible but you just don't think you're getting it right. 

​We have a section on our website where we've placed some of the ideas that we have used in the past - check it out here! One of our ongoing thoughts has been the way we record our Learning Journeys. Currently we use a ring binder and every piece of 'work', photos, observations and other evidence is placed into the folder in chronological order. We like this way of working as it minimises the amount of organising, cutting and sticking, filing etc. Moving to an online Learning Journey, such as Tapestry, would give us the opportunity to give carers at home access to their child's learning - being able to view and comment or even add to their child's learning. 

​However, as with everything there's always things to consider. And for us it was the cost. One of the things you're paying for is the data management - linking to the Foundation Stage Profile, making judgements, producing percentages etc. We already have a whole school system for this and we obviously don't want to duplicate this job. 

​So was there another way? Well I think I've found something. And it came from a slightly unexpected source! Our school as just moved over to trialing 'Class Dojo'. This is a class based system for rewarding students for positive behaviour. 

Our school is testing it as a replacement for 'team points' or 'house points'. However, for us in Reception, we didn't want to take this on. I felt especially strongly about embedding positive behaviour for intrinsic reasons and not for extrinsic rewards. 

​However, while discussing and talking about Class Dojo I made a discovery. We already knew that Class Dojo had been expanded to incorporate other useful class resources, such as timers, music, random children generators and even teaching sessions around  mindfulness and making mistakes. But I also found a new section. Student stories and class stories. 

​Basically class stories are photos and videos that you can add to, to show what you are doing during class. For example you might take a picture of some work that you have been attempting or some artwork that the children have created. Student stories are individual versions where children can add photos and videos of their work. A little like Facebook you can add comments (everything goes to the teacher before being posted) and because you can give parents access, they can take a part in their child's learning. Check out this video to give you a better idea.

Does anyone else use Class Dojo? How is it going? So far I've had a little play and added the children to my class. And that's it. But I'll let you know how it goes! 

​Mark x

We had future artists or rather graffiti experts in the form of a 2 year old make her mark on one of the display boards in my room and that is how it will stay as I am a great believer in allowing the children to express theirselves and showcase their talents- I really quite like it! ​

So it's the end of the first week (and I'm happily exhausted)! It being the weekend, my mind has turned to the jobs I've still got to finish. One of them is my class self-registration - I've left it because with the children not being in full time yet I convinced myself it was one job I could put off for a while! Every time it came to making the new class registration I couldn't help but wonder if it was worth the time and effort?!

For the last few years my class self-registration has been done through names, printed onto Velcro and the children move them onto a board when they arrive. This worked and there was nothing wrong with it but it had been the same for the last couple of years and I fancied a change - maybe something a little more exciting or creative. 

​While trying to decide what to use, my team and I chatted about what had worked and why. One of the obvious benefits of having just the child's name was that the children came to recognise their name and by the end of the year all of the children could recognise their own name, We also chatted about how we had encouraged the children to use their self-registration cards to help them when they were writing their names on their work etc. This also worked really well and meant that by the end of the year, all of the children were writing their own name - although some were a bit more wibbly wobbly than others! We considered not having names but we felt that this was a missed opportunity and decided that whatever system we created would have their name on it somewhere. 

​While trying to work out what we were going to use, I asked our lovely Ace family (that's YOU out there!) and had some fab ideas! 
​

Emma ​uses their interactive white board. They create images with children's names in and once they are in, they press their name and it disappears or flies up! The pictures are changed topically throughout the year! 

Jess
"I have a dinner plate and a lunchbox and the children register by moving their name on the IWB to the type of lunch they are having. I also have another one with emotions on it."

There are some lovely whiteboard self-registration resources are available from Communication4all and also from twinkl. 

Tishy Lishy also sent us a picture of her new self-registration method. Check it out! 

Helen uses a similar idea...

Suzanne:
​"I have stuck their names on pieces of Duplo before and had a base. The children add their names to create a different construction each morning!"

Danielle:
​"We've done stones but also stuck a mini photo of the child underneath if they are unable to confidently recognise their name. It also allowed other children to check who hasn't put their name in the basket and find them."

Nicola:
​"We are called Friendly Frogs Nursery and each child has a photo on a frog. The children have to find the first lily pad which have numbers 1-26 on."

Mandy
​"My new class are the Elephants and they all have their names on an elephant Velcro'd onto the wall. When they come in they find their name and put their elephant in a basket before starting their early morning activities." 

Rebecca
I link mine to British values with democracy. The children have an angelfish with their name on (we are angelfish class) and they vote for a story. The one with the most votes we read before home time.

SO..... after seeing this post on Facebook by Alistair @ ABCDoes:

I was hit by inspiration. Or a crazy idea... What if we asked the children to decorate a peg and then when they come in they find their peg and place it into a holder? And we'll stick their name through the peg bit so that they can learn to recognise and spell their name...

My plan is to get the children to decorate their peg next week. On the worktop I'm going to have 30 spaces with a peg holder stuck in each one. Underneath there will be number shape pictures and then a space for the children to write the digit.

Want to read about how my self-registration is getting on?! Click 'Read More' to find out! 

​Mark x